PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

94 PrfJpert, in Lan4.
the clearing, manuring, and ploughing of a field,
give the first occupier a right in perpetuity after this
cultivation and all the effects of it are ceased.
Another, and in my opinion, a better account of
the first right of owner-ship, is the following: that,
as God has provided these things for the use of all,
he has of consequence given each leave to take of
them what he wants; by virtue th~refore of this
lea'¥e, a man may appropriate what he stands in need
of to his own use, without asking or waitirJg for the
consent of others; in like manner, (i.e; when an entertainment
is provided for tbe freeholders of '.l county,
each freeholder got..'S, and eats and drinks what
he wants or chooses, without haloing or waiting fer
the consent of the other guests.
But then, this reason j~6es property, as far as
necessaries alone, or, at the most, as far as a competent
provision for our natural exigences. Fot·, in
the entertainment we speak of (allowing the comparison
to hold in all poinu j although every par ..
ticular freehoider may sit do,m and eat till he be
satisfied, without any -other leave than that of the
master of the feast, or any other proof of that leave,
than the general invitation, or the manifest design
\\,itb, which the entertainment is provided; yet you
would hardly permit any on to fin his )lockets: or
his wal1er, or to carry away with him a ~uantity of
provision to be hoarded up, or wasted, or given to
his dog-s, or stewed do\vn into sauces, or converted
into articles of s!Aperfluous luxury; eEpecially if by so
doing, he pinched the guests at the lower end of the
table.
1-'hese ~re the accounts that Ilave been gi\Fen of the
Jnatter by the be::;t writers upon the subject; but,
were the!;e accounts perfectI y unexceptionable, they
,vould none of tIlem, I fear, avail lIS in vindicating
our present daims of property in land, unless it were
more probable than it i~t that our estates were actu·
all\~ ~Lcollired at fir~t, i,l ~0~11e c,f the \\·avs \vhi.'::!1
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